As many Houstonians slept Saturday morning, a group of volunteers constructed a memorial at Discovery Green in downtown for the nearly 600 Texan soldiers and civilians slain in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Stan Merriman, officer of the Houston chapter of the Veterans for Peace, arrived around 9 a.m. with other volunteers to plant hundreds of American flags on the grassy area surrounding the park trail. Each small flag contained the name of one Texas soldier who perished, along with a photo, birthday, hometown and details of the demise.

"It's our belief that the public needs to understand the price that families, veterans and those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan paid," Merriman said.

Merriman was joined by Madeleine Crozat-Williams, a coordinator of CODEPINK, a women's worldwide peace organization that was responsible for constructing the civilian memorial portion of the exhibit. Crozat-Williams also hopes to draw attention to the children affected by war by displaying posters written in Pashto, Arabic and English.

"People need to understand the cost of the war," Crozat-Williams said. "American children are losing parents, and children in Iraq and Afghanistan are being severely injured."

'People need a visual'

In previous years, the organizations constructed more than 5,000 flags for each American killed in the war. However due to limited volunteers, Merriman said it was "nearly impossible" to produce that many, and instead chose to focus only on Texas casualties.